early retirement - All posts tagged early retirement

MarketWatch’s Andrea Coombes recently profiled two couples who made major financial sacrifices in order to be able to retire in their 30s. Those pieces prompted us to poll our readers and ask them: How far would you go to retire early? With more than 2,600 responses in so far (and more still coming), here’s a snapshot of the answers.

A reader quickly realizes that people who retire very early generally start with common-sense financial habits (save diligently, stick to a budget) and take them to extremes (save 50% of your income, track every penny of your spending for two years). The bottom line: You’ve got to make some big changes long before you make the big transition.

So we’re asking MarketWatch and Encore readers: How much are you willing to do to close the gap between you and your retirement? Take this brief poll, sound off in the comments section below, and thanks for your time.

It’s a story heard all too often: Workers in their 50s are pushed into retirement early and, unable to find work, begin to tap their savings. But some simple strategies might help minimize the damage to a household’s savings.

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Retiring too soon can derail your financial plans.

A study last year by research firm Limra found that almost half of 1,533 retired workers who were surveyed had retired earlier than planned – and often not by choice. Seventeen percent left the workforce for health reasons; 14% were bought out; and 7% exited because of negative working conditions.

Finding a new job in later life is difficult, at best. And drawing from retirement savings, in such circumstances, often becomes unavoidable. But as Kelly Greene discusses in an article this week in The Wall Street Journal, households can take certain steps to keep any cracks in a nest egg from becoming larger than necessary.

National Public Radio is airing a “retirement” story today that could come across as inspiring or depressing, depending on your mood and the state of your savings account. NPR’s Curt Nikish profiles Winston Chen, a software company employee who decided to “retire” at age 40—but only for one year. Chen, his wife, Kristin Botnen, and their two young kids spent that year on an island in Botnen’s native Norway, north of the Arctic Circle, where Chen pursued some activities that sound like retirement fantasies come true (fishing, oil painting, reading long books) and others that sound like anything but (designing this iPhone app).

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Norway: It’s no Sarasota.

What Chen calls a one-year retirement sounds a lot like what folks in academia (and a very lucky few in the corporate world) would call a sabbatical, though without the threat of a book or article deadline that can turn academic sabbaticals into curses in disguise. But there’s a deeper philosophical question about retirement in play. Chen tells NPR he was inspired by this 2009 TED Talk from Stefan Sagmeister, whose message Chen summarizes as: “Why don’t we take five years out of retirement and spread them throughout your working life?” Why not enjoy those leisurely years when you’re younger, and even use them to reenergize your career?

If you want to retire at age 50, it probably helps to register a major professional success at the age of 26. Movie director Steven Soderbergh attained the latter feat in 1989, with the release of critically adored and popular “sex, lies, and videotape,” and now he’s aiming for the former.

Nicolas Genin

Farewell, movie houses; hello, museums.

Having directed more than two dozen feature films in the last 25 years, including the “Ocean’s” trilogy, “Out of Sight,” and “Contagion,” Soderbergh explains to the Wall Street Journal’s Don Steinberg that he’s through making movies, or at least movies for theatrical release. “If I wanted to make something again, I think it would be either long-form TV or something that really isn’t designed to be seen outside of a museum,” Soderbergh says, somewhat ominously, “something that functions more like a Matthew Barney piece than it does like a traditional movie.”

Soderbergh has publicly mulled retirement before, in 2011, but this time it appears to be serious. His presumably final films will be “Side Effects,” which opens in theaters next week, and the Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra”—with Michael Douglas as Liberace, for heaven’s sake—which will run on HBO in May.

In a series that started last week, MarketWatch’s retirement columnists offer their best wishes for the season—and a few tips to help readers move from wish to reality. In today’s final installment, Robert Powell gives readers guidance about Social Security.

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In a day and age when fewer and fewer people have a pension and many people don’t have a lot socked away for retirement, it’s becoming increasingly critical that you calculate the best time and strategy for you and (if you have one) your spouse to take Social Security.

So my wish for you is this: Get the timing right.

Don’t just take Social Security at age 62, the earliest eligibility age for most retirees, without crunching the numbers. Moreover, don’t just blindly accept what is fast becoming conventional wisdom and delay taking Social Security. Make an intelligent decision based on your household’s needs not just for today, but over your life expectancy and then some. To guide your decision, you could read, for instance, The Social Security Claiming Guide, published by the center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Or read RetireMentor Andy Landis’s book Social Security: The Inside Story, 2012 Edition.

About Encore

Encore looks at the changing nature of retirement, from new rules and guidelines for financial security to the shifting identities, needs and priorities of people saving for and living in retirement. Our lead blogger is editor Matthew Heimer, and frequent contributors include editor Amy Hoak, writer Catey Hill, and MarketWatch columnists Elizabeth O’Brien, Robert Powell and Andrea Coombes. Encore also features regular commentary from The Wall Street Journal retirement columnists Glenn Ruffenach and Anne Tergesen and the Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Alicia H. Munnell.